Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to networking communications and data storage and more specifically relates to establishing and maintaining secure distributed shared storage space for individual users and their selected peers over a public and private network infrastructure.
Related Art
Conventional network based data storage solutions typically require the resources of a large company to host network accessible storage space for individual users. Additionally, sharing files and data between individual users in typical conventional network implementations is either not allowed or is limited to a put and retrieve model. Examples of such conventional systems include file transfer protocol (“FTP”) servers and virtual private network (“VNP”) providers. FTP and VPN both suffer from complicated administration by the provider and require individual users to store files and data on the FTP or VPN provider's storage units. Therefore, what is needed is a system and method that overcomes these significant problems found in the conventional systems as described above.